Raman Effect in Hydrogen Sulphide

Abstract

THE Raman spectrum of hydrogen sulphide, both in the gaseous and liquid states, has been successfully photographed by me. The liquid exhibits a single intense and quite sharp line shifted by 2578 wave-numbers from the exciting mercury radiation. With the gas, the line appears in a slightly different position, with a frequency shift of 2615 wave-numbers, and is distinctly more diffuse than in the liquid. According to Barker and Meyer (Trans. Far. Soc., 25, 912; 1929) the infra-red absorption spectrum of gaseous hydrogen sulphide shows a complex band at about 3.7μ which evidently represents the superposition of rotation on this vibrational frequency. The plates for both the liquid and the gas showed indications of other faint lines or bands which were adjacent to the exciting mercury radiations and presumably could be ascribed to a rotational Raman effect. It may be remarked that the line observed with the liquid hydrogen sulphide is identically in the same position as a prominent line obtained in the Raman spectra of a series of organic hydro-sulphides studied at Calcutta by Venkateswaran, and also in its frequency shift with an important infra-red absorption frequency of these compounds.